Mr. Speaker, allow me explain, once again, how it works. If a person entitled to 30 weeks of employment insurance were to begin collecting benefits two weeks earlier, those benefits would just run out two weeks earlier. The claimant would receive the same number of weeks. With our approach, that person will collect another five weeks of benefits on top of the original 30 weeks, at a time when it takes longer than usual to find a job. That sounds like a much better deal to me: five weeks instead of two. But the Bloc voted against that.
In the House of Commons on May 25th, 2009. See this statement in context.